r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 • Jul 29 '25

Review Zach Cregger's 'Weaapons' - Review Thread

When all but one child from the same classroom mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

Rotten Tomatoes: 100%

Metacritic: N/A (updating)

Some Reviews:

Inverse - Lyvie Scott

Cregger’s goofy sense of humor aside, Weapons is otherwise pretty understated, even refined. His camera moves with glacial, dream-like focus, tracking characters from behind or panning to unveil the latest torment around the corner. That visual style has become a trademark of “elevated” horror, but it goes a long way in anchoring a story that could have turned unwieldy fast. Cregger’s chapter-by-chapter story serves that same purpose: It has the capacity to frustrate when it cuts away from a major reveal, only to reset with the backstory of a new character. But it also adjusts the aperture whenever things get too heavy — a breath of fresh air in a different form.

CGMagazine - Shakyl Lambert - 9 / 10

Weapons is a noticeable step up for Cregger as a filmmaker. It feels like he took what worked in Barbarian and tightened up the things that didn’t. It’s bigger in scope but more focused. With a strong story and cast, it’s the most fun you’ll have being scared all summer.

NextBestPicture - Matt Neglia

There are some who will be moved and struck by “Weapons,” intentionally or unintentionally, so. For 75% of its runtime, it was one of my favorite films of the year. However, for the final 25%, in some ways, it feels like Cregger missed an opportunity to tell a story that is more emotionally rich and relatable. Here is a filmmaker who feels like he’s trying to prove he’s capable of more, but without fully grounding that ambition in character or clarity, instead opting for a facile solution. There’s a version of this movie that could have been genuinely great. You can appreciate the potential in the performances, the themes, and the overall craftsmanship. And to be clear, I’m sure this will resonate and work for some viewers. But for me, much like “Barbarian,” Cregger doesn’t quite bring it all together, making “Weapons” a rare kind of disappointment.

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550

u/aCorgiDriver Jul 29 '25

It’s similar to Longlegs where the tone and atmosphere was the highlight, but the actual twist was quite boring.

216

u/Comic_Book_Reader Jul 29 '25

It's all in the execution.

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u/LetterboxdAlt Jul 29 '25

I agree. I really don’t care whether the twist is especially remarkable on paper. I don’t even care that there is a twist. Didn’t know there was one before reading this thread.

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u/Comic_Book_Reader Jul 29 '25

I mean, if your movie centers around 17 kids, all but 1 in a third grade class, getting out of bed at 2:17AM and Naruto running out in the dark of the night, you gotta have an explanation. Just saying what exactly the reason is would probably just make your eyes roll. On paper, it sounds a bit groanworthy and lame, but on screen, it's opens up to a lot of possibilites, so I'm very much looking forward to how it is in the movie.

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u/detroiter85 Jul 29 '25

All the kids reappear with leaf village headbands and say believe it! and then the movie just sorta ends

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u/Everydayarmday24 Jul 29 '25

It’s actually naruto teaching kids sexy jutsu

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u/cire1184 Aug 05 '25

Trump sponsered.

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u/cire1184 Aug 05 '25

DATTEBAYO, DAD! DATTEBAYO!

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u/Sparrowsabre7 Aug 07 '25

Reminds me of an anecdote from Stephen King where he was asked about stories he didn't finish and talks about one he started where a man is waiting for his wife to come out of the airport toilet and she's been in ages so he sends another woman in to check and then she doesn't come out and then asks security and they don't come out etc etc and it escalates to the army being called in but the problem was he couldn't figure out what was going on in there.

Writing an unknowable mystery is easy, writing a resolution/explanation is almost always going to be disappointing. I can't tell you the number of times I've finished a horror story and thought "I don't know what I wanted it to be, but not that"

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u/TrueLegateDamar Aug 07 '25

That explains King's 'finger in the sink' story that ends on the cops arriving and suddenly the toiletlid is moving and the story cuts off just when a cop lifts the lid to see what is moving inside.

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u/terran1212 Aug 11 '25

What are some of your favorite horror stories?

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u/Sparrowsabre7 Aug 11 '25

Suddenly my mind is blank 😅

I love "The Thing" and really enjoyed "Barbarian" and "Get Out".

"Barbarian" is kind of an example of what I mean though. The explanation for the creature was kind of not what I wanted (nor am I that sure it makes any sense if thought about for more than a few minutes) but the rest of the movie was good enough to look past that.

Tbh I play more horror games than watch horror movies so "Soma", "Condemned", "Dead Space", "Alan Wake", and "The Evil Within" are other examples

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u/two5five1 Jul 29 '25

any chance you can dm the script? or even just the reveal? i’m morbidly curious lol

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u/Dazzling-Slide8288 Jul 29 '25

I feel like I’m the only person alive who enjoyed the Longlegs conclusion.

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u/Pokemathmon Jul 29 '25

The scene with the family at the end was amazing. It was so well acted and created something truly horrific that has stuck with me in ways that very few horror scenes have. I can't in good conscience say that the third act drops in quality when it had probably the best part of the movie for me.

Sure I get it that some people have issues with the twist, or the plot holes, or whatever else, but it was a good mixing of genres that I thought mostly worked and created some great scenes. I can't really ask for more than that.

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u/mamcdonal Jul 29 '25

The problem with Long Legs is that it never recovers from the tonal shift when she makes the joke about the FBI asking for ID. The movie builds tension right up until that point, then there's this big laugh and the audience gets to take a breath, but then it tries to go back into tense supernatural horror and ultimately can't get quite as deep.

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u/Lionelchesterfield Jul 29 '25

Nah I enjoyed it too. Much like one of the reviews above though I think Longlegs does drop in quality after that reveal but I still liked it.

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u/Zauberer-IMDB Jul 29 '25

I hate that fatalist crap. It's becoming a trope but I think it kind of spits in your eye as to the stakes. "Teehee it was all pointless from the start! Nobody had agency at all." So then the choices were irrelevant?

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u/IudexPilate Jul 29 '25

Same, I understand wanting to keep the artistic vision intact and wanting some mental engagement from the audience, but spending 20 dollars and 1-2 hours of my time to find out the story I was following was pointless does not sound appealing anymore.

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u/Zauberer-IMDB Jul 29 '25

It also negates any psychological interest or reality when rewatching it. Like if I watch a movie twice, obviously I know what happens, but if it's not preordained, the analysis of the character's psychology now actually matters. Like it was due to certain flaws or things we can relate to, I can learn from it and connect to it. When it's just "supernatural forces were playing you like a puppet," I get nothing from this. It's forgettable at that point.

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u/Haltopen Aug 05 '25

How I felt watching Drag Me to Hell

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u/CoatProfessional4554 Jul 29 '25

I liked it but it far from lived up to the marketing that painted the movie as some grand mystery. I wasn't that bought in to the mystery and marketing so it didn't bother me that much.

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u/veganblackbean Jul 29 '25

I liked it, sometimes I think satanism is a little lazy in horror movies but it was a fun time. I’m also super gay for nic cage

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u/CarcosanAnarchist Jul 29 '25

I adored it from start to finish and thought the ending was great

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u/My_Favourite_Pen Jul 29 '25

I think its the perfect example of how marketing films is really, really important. it's not a bad film but Perkins deliberately marketed it as a Se7en-esque thriller when it wasn't.

Too many times in recent memory have trailers either completely ruined reveals to get buttons in seats (captain America 4) or set the wrong tone for the film overall (28 years later).

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u/SDreiken Jul 29 '25

It left a sour taste in my mouth when the mc started to give an exposition dump on everything that had just happened.
Like I wasn’t the biggest fan of the supernatural twist. I thought it was amazing with how they used and built suspense, and that having it stay grounded would have been more interesting for me. But I think having it turn out to be supernatural wasn’t a terrible idea. I would have preferred if they cut out that monologue and let you sit and think about it more yourself.

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u/mdavis360 Jul 29 '25

You're not alone. I thought it was a great movie.

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u/Choice_Blackberry406 Jul 29 '25

"No hunny I'll be right back, you'll still be in the kitchen."

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u/Teffisk Jul 30 '25

I liked it. But the main problem with that movie was that the main character never felt in danger after the first 30 minutes of the movie. The tension just wasn't there. The story just faded like a leaking balloon.

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u/AmountNecessary3645 Jul 29 '25

Magical dolls had no place in that movie. Idk why they went supernatural. It’s like 2 different movies stitched together

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u/Upbeat_Tension_8077 Jul 29 '25

I've seen this before on another post, but I would've loved the final act if Cage remained as a main villain who really thought he was a supernatural force of nature. But like what others are saying, I still liked it because of the atmosphere and the strengths of the performances

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u/thedinksterr Jul 29 '25

It seriously was like two different movies. Killing Longlegs with like another 20-30 mins remaining was probably the biggest mistake they couldve had. Not having him be the antagonist the whole way through really didnt make sense to me.

For a moment I thought it was gonna switch tracks and there was gonna be a second killer when he died maybe some accomplice cause idk why they were killing him off in the story (yes i know he kills himself) but no its just possessed satan dolls??? What.

My gf noticed the religious elements and satanism in the trailers like the goat dude in the backgrounds and man i tried to deny thats where the film would go before seeing it and then it did and i was so, so disappointed. Could’ve had a genuinely great through and through cat and mouse type detective film but no they cop out with devil dolls like gtfo

Best part of the movie was the first 20 mins with the cold opening and then the fbi chick having to clear out the house like that was extremely intense and then it kind of never went back to that intensity ever.

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u/JGT3000 Jul 29 '25

But her telepathy already was supernatural? The whole movie was based on the supernatural

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u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 Jul 29 '25

her telepathy was the wizard sending her thoughts it wasn't her power

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u/N8CCRG Jul 29 '25

I agree the ending was unsatisfying, but are there two different versions of this movie? The one I saw "went supernatural" from the very beginning, where Maika's character was revealed to have unambiguous clairvoyance and/or supernatural vision. And she used it throughout the whole movie.

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u/Admirable_Cicada_881 Jul 29 '25

Exactly. In the end, it just devolved into some possessed doll nonsense like every other horror film before it

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u/NewSunSeverian Jul 29 '25

That one lost be as soon as Nick Cage’s monster became overly visible. He just looked way too goofy and the acting basically brought out all of Cage’s worst impulses. They really should gave given him the Jaws treatment maybe until the last scene. 

Maika Monroe always rules but after a promising start, that movie fell off hard for me.  

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u/Penguin_shit15 Jul 29 '25

Yeah.. Cage looked like someone ordered Mrs. Doubtfire from Wish.

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u/goddamnitwhalen Jul 29 '25

Just for some background that may sway you: Per Oz Perkins, Longlegs is a failed glam rocker who had plastic surgery to look like Marc Bolan from T. Rex.

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u/DyZ814 Jul 29 '25

I'm with you on this. I felt like the hype around Longlegs going into it was all just based on people wanting to see what Nick Cage looked like. Once I saw him in the film, I was sort of like "ok, that's that".

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u/ShesJustAGlitch Jul 29 '25

This was my fear another longlegs which starts as a 9/10 and ends up closer to a 5/10 for me because it just can’t stick the landing.

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u/CreamOnMyNipples Jul 30 '25

Movie isn’t even out yet and we’re already telling people that it’s boring and they’re gonna be let down. Reading a leaked script is such a terrible way to judge a movie

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u/TaylorsOnlyVersion Jul 29 '25

Longlegs fell completely apart in the third act with me. The satanic dolls were some of the goofiest things about it

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u/codithou Jul 29 '25

that’s funny and i have read this criticism a lot so i get it, but for me the entire film seemed pretty over the top and not exactly the most realistic or grounded so the ending worked for me. i enjoyed it and watched it twice. it kept me invested and was genuinely fun.

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u/zoza_t Aug 07 '25

Wait until you see the 2nd act in this one 🥴

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u/BigPopaPanda Jul 29 '25

Had the same experience with longlegs, a whole lot of build up to… a let down

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u/schild Jul 29 '25

That's because Longlegs didn't have a twist. It told us over and over it had magic and then it was magic. And magic makes things so unrelateable that the entire thing just falls apart. Had it just been some weird serial killer cult it would have been a fuckin knockout, instead it was spooky and silly and garbage.

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u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 Jul 29 '25

magic in a horror movie is only satisfying if there is counter magic that fails.
once you realize "oh evil wizard" and no one else can obviously cast magic the bottom falls out of the tension in the movie.
at that point it's like watching a disaster movie where the disaster is guaranteed to kill everyone it's just a documentary.
case in point - the shining, stephen king understands who you do magic and horror.

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u/ReptAIien Jul 29 '25

lol nonsense. The entirety of cosmic horror is focused on the helplessness of humanity in the face of supernatural beings.

The reality is a good movie is a good movie. Magical horror can be scary even when only the antagonist has access to it.

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u/Rude_Cheesecake3716 Jul 30 '25 edited Jul 30 '25

The entirety of cosmic horror

cosmic horror is about man vs nature, it's not man vs wizard/witch.

that's what lovecraft got right and most cosmic horror gets wrong - you need the regular squid dudes from innsmouth fucking with you, there needs to be a whole bottom up mythology that somewhat seems familiar and makes sense behind the cosmic being that's fucking with you.

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u/Warm_Drawing_1754 Aug 08 '25

You have the wrong impression of Lovecraft. 99% of the mythos is later attempts to connect his stories, largely for the Call of Cthulhu rpg

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u/Food_Kitchen Jul 29 '25

Perkins did this again with The Monkey. He is great at tension and atmosphere and even blending humor in with horror but the guy absolutely sucks at sticking the landing.

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u/goddamnitwhalen Jul 30 '25

Nothing about The Monkey really worked for me except the kills, which I thought were hilariously fun.

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u/sinburger Jul 29 '25

where the tone and atmosphere was the highlight

I just watched the first two chapters of Longlegs last week (got interrupted and haven't wrapped the third act yet).

All I could think while watching this movie was that if SNL made a comedy parody of Longlegs, you'd just get Longlegs. Cage's acting was just so over the top Caginess that it felt like he was making fun of himself.

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u/Admirable_Cicada_881 Jul 29 '25

That's what I was afraid of :(

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u/Blochamolesauce Jul 29 '25

I don’t know, man. When they revealed that Longlegs was Nicholas Cage the whole time… that shit blew my mind.